Saturday, February 23, 2008

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances."

-Supreme Court Justice David Davis

Ex parte Milligan - 1866

JAG HUNTER HERE:

Former Navy Hospital Corpsman Tom Overton, III remarked Wednesday during our phone conversation that "we (military members) all know we give up our constitutional rights (he should have said constitutional protections) when when we join the military." Mr. Overton and I were discussing former and recent criminal acts committed another Sweetwater resident, U.S. Ranger, Staff Sergeant Raymond L. Girouard.

I encounter this a lot and am more deeply dismayed at each instance America's demise is evidenced once more.

I told Publisher Overton he was wrong and challenged him on the point. I'm happy for Mr. Overton, or any one else, to correct me by supplying the citation--with particulars--regarding the convention amending the Constitution whereupon American servicemen were stripped of their constitutional protections.

Just at that moment Overton's beeper alerted an incoming call (so he said), and whoops...gotta go...Publisher Overton was gone.

Mr. Tommy Millsaps and I had a similar phone conversation earlier in the same week. Mr. Millsaps is a reporter for The Advocate & Democrat (feel the o-o-z-e!).

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man thanthat any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government...Martial law cannot arise for a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present; the invasion [or emergency] real, such as effectively closes the courts...Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It's also confined to the locality of the actual war."

In fairness to Publisher Overton, Reporter Millsaps, and Editor Mia Rhodarmer (who I also spoke with), nearly every media worker I've encountered believes the DURABLE MYTH that military personnel forfeit their constitutional protections when they pledge their lives in sacrifice promising to defend you and me...and oh yeah...the Constitution.

Think about it!

Think hard!

So...with the phrase invincible ignorance ringing in my ears it's appropriate and helpful to obediently accept that "there is...a time for war and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:8)." There are brief and infrequent moments when the state of society is in a state of emergency. Moments that catastrophically alter human laws and human punishments and that must--as matters of necessity--transcend constitutional boundaries.

"Martial Law, which is built upon no settled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its decisions is, in truth and reality no law, but something indulged in rather than allowed as law. The necessity of order and discipline...is the only thing which can give it countenance."

Self-preservation is also a core determiner in assessing whether it's necessary to invoke martial law and the courts-martial scheme.

The Constitution must be operative at all times excepting during those infrequent and brief instances--in times of invasion or other extraordinary emergencies that close courts--when the Constitution can't work.

As brief, as infrequent, as extraordinary a moment as would be our plight as lifeboat survivors with a bad actor among us. (See Alfred Hitchcock's film LIFEBOAT on DVD).

After all, Abe Lincoln is attributed in the observation that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

I can't cure the invincibly ignorant.

For media professionals who persist in "holding their tongues" while watching in plain view senior military commanders perpetrate crimes against Ray Girouard, Larry Hutchins, and other innocent American citizens, self-censorship is more corrosive, more acid, more dangerous than forced censorship. You might just as well "make tooth picks of your pens." (Aurora General Advertiser Editor Benjamin Franklin Bache commenting on the Sedition Act of 1798--as quoted in Ian Toll's history: Six Frigates)

For the rest, your duty is a clear and plain as can be: Proverbs 31:8.

My constitutional challenge to Publisher Overton, by the way, is unanswerable. No federal army or navy existed from 1787 to mid-1789 and brief references to those institutions were written in the future tense. There is nothing--repeat--NOTHING in the Constitution as amemded that drops the its shield of protection for military personnel. Supreme Court Justice Davis' words are as appropriate and relevant and enforceable as law today as they were in 1866.

Army Staff Sergeant Ray Girouard and Marine Sergeant Larry Hutchins were forced under extreme duress to speak against themselves. The same is so for uncounted other military personnel abducted and locked away in Defense Department dungeons. Forced confessions and the subornation of evidence and testimony is a routine and regular occurance institutionalized within the defense establishment's system of discipline.

Civilian criminal convictions in our time are consistent with our understanding of the human condition that even when seated a jury does not guarantee a defendant--falsely accused--safe refuge or full protection.

Author/attorney John Grisham arouses deep concern (in his non-fiction work, THE INNOCENT MAN) that the combination of lying accusers, and politically motivated prosecutors/politicians are not trustworthy arbiters when evidence is easily manufactured, contradictory, defective, defecient, or altogether lacking.

Juries are hoodwinked all the time.

The scheme of "JUDICIAL REVIEW" through an appeals process is intended as a corrective when jury manipulation or other prosecutorial mischief is uncovered.

McMinn County, Tennessee Assistant District Attorney James Stutts (also known as "Mr. Mayor" here in Sweetwater) would agree that the easiest way to solve and prosecute a crime is to get a confession.

Former U.S. Army Judge Advocate General ("TJAG") Samuel T. Ansell expressed the concept more forcefully repeating that, "there is no better witness against a man than himself." (Writing in the November 1919 Cornell Law Quarterly)

Army TJAG Ansell warned Americans four-score and eight years ago that the prosecutorial mischief and tyrannous interrogation methods Grisham condemns in civilian practice today (as should we all) have been and continue to be aggressively practiced as standard operating procedures in America's defense establishment throughout--unconstitutionally--U.S. history!

Ansell writes: "While the military mind is intolerant of protective principles and of rules governing a [civilian] trial, it is particularly so to the rules of evidence. The professional officers of our [military] in great numbers believed...'that the business of courts-martial is not be discuss law, but to get at the truth by all the means in its power...We...want to get at the fact (no matter how) for the sake of discipline. There is no better witness against a man than himself. That statement is axiomatic among professional officers. They [the admirals or generals...America's "Flag officers"] will hear of no qualifications nor can they see evil consequences of the generous application of what is so good. It is the basis of military third-degree methods.' "

Describing those third-degree methods, we discover special agents from each of the service dective agencies conduct themselves in the most eggregious and oppressive manner: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) for the Navy and Marine Corps; Criminal Investigative Service (CID) in the Army, Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), and Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS), and then the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

"Confessions" are obtained by operating on the hopes or fears of those accused depriving them of the freedom of will or self-control necessary to make a voluntary statement. Statements are extracted from witnesses and those accused by any sort of threat or violence or promise however slight. Coercion is mental as well as physical. Special agents from the federal goon squads named above extract statements as SOP usining psychological coercion tactics that feature the length of the interrogations, the time of day (night or day or just after coming in from an extended, gruelling battlefield patrol foot patrol), and playing on the psychological makeup and military training of the person under scrutiny.

And military dectives are not obliged to honor the request of an accused for an attorney. In many instances, such as in the situations of field interrogations carried out in combat theaters overseas, an advocate for the accused just isn't available. No worries...none is required.

Language just used in describing NCIS/CID/CGIS/DCIS/AFOSI third-degree tactics has to be setting off alarms for most attorneys (memo to Sweetwater Mayor Stutts) inasmuch as it's taken from a body of Supreme Court rulings condemning those precise interrogation methods.

Defense Department goon squad agents remain unconcerned regarding any legal constraints otherwise describing them as outlaws. Interrogations are neither audio or video recorded. And even if they were these renegade agents could still (and do) operate freely. No other federal law enforcement agency will effect an arrest of a DOD detective even with their criminal conduct in plain view.

And once in the discipline hearing rooms, courts-martial are not subject of judicial review of any type or kind. Rogue JAGs don't concern themselves with the case they have to present to a JURY, because there are no juries. Moreover, JAGs find themselves as unconstrained in their criminal conduct as do the rogue DOD goon squad dectectives. There exists no such animal as an "APPEAL" for servicemen (or their families) to seek remedy or relief. And JAGs are not subject to discipline from their respective state bar associations (remember: courts-martial are not courts).

Noteworthy now to point out that in nearly every circumstance made public in the conduct of a courts-martial--just as in the cases of Sergeants Girouard and Hutchins--the government would have no case would it not be through the submissions of forced statements and confessions. These cases are void physical evidence. In the situations accusing homicide there are no bodies to be identified. There are no credible (if any) civilian witnesses. And there's no accuser with standing.

Motives behind inventing a case against an airman, marine, soldier, or sailor runs a very long list we'll discusss later in this series. For the moment it serves to paraphrase a comment made by Admiralty Lawyer/Maritime Author William James, so far as the character of any courts-martial is concerned...

It may suit "The Flags (admirals and generals)" to invent anyfalsehood, no matter how barefaced, to foist a valiant character on themselvesor on their respective service.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

-Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher

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Army Staff Sergeant Ray Girouard and Marine Sergeant Larry Hutchins are innocent men until a jury says different!

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JAG HUNTER HERE: The Constitution forbids jury displays of patronage, preeminence, or position. Our foundation in law~the United States Constitution~outlaws a juror's self-promotion of power, passion, or promise of peril.

Courts-martial are not courts!

Jurors do not wear uniforms!

My first at-sea assignment after graduation from Annapolis was to the guided-missile cruiser USS STERRETT (CG-31) homeported out of San Diego, California. I know a little bit about the ship's namesake.

Twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett commanded a gun-battery two-hundred-nine-years ago this date when his ship~USS CONSTELLATION~engaged the French 36-gun frigate L'INSURGENTE northeast the Caribbean island of Nevis.

Once the battle was joined Lt. Sterrett chased down a crewman who'd bolted from his battle-station in fright. Sterrett is quoted narrating the episode: "One fellow I was obliged to run through the body with my sword, and so put an end to a coward. You must not think this strange, for we would put a man to death for even looking pale on board this ship." (also see Ian Toll's magnificent and recent history: SIX FRIGATES, pgs. 114-118)

The United States Navy was an all-volunteer force on 9 February 1799.

Lt. Sterrett was the physical manisfestation of America's commander in chief (CINC) on CONSTELLATION's gun-deck as conveyed through Sterrett's commanding officer, Thomas Truxton.

One of Sterrett's duties, in keeping with the Roman-Britian tradition of martial discipline, was to ensure CONSTELLATION crewmen were more afraid of losing their lives at the hands of the CINC, Truxton, Sterrett, and the other ship's officers than those volunteers feared losing their lives by engaging the enemy in combat.

Lt. Sterrett killed the hapless gunners-mate to instill fear. Sterrett acted in Truxton's name, under the commander in chief's authority.

NO JUDGE! NO JURY!

Military discipline operates in the same fashion today as it did over two-centuries ago. The point of a court-martial ~like the point of Sterrett's sword~ is the promise of ritual injury and threats against life and liberty. Just as navy ships were crewed in the late-1700's, courts-martial nowadays are "crewed" by the commander's hand-picked representatives. Their duty, like Sterrett's, is to give physical expression to the will of the commander in chief...and to instill fear.

THERE ARE NO JUDGES! THERE ARE NO JURIES!

All military courts-martial participants are "present and accounted for" unders orders of the commander in chief (known to most of us as the president of the United States). Officers ordered to courts-martial duty find themselves in the same subservient, proxy connection to the CINC as Lt. Sterrett did on CONSTELLATION's gundeck.

Lt. Sterrett's stabbing death of his shipmate was as real an expression of the commander's will as courts-martial have ever been in purpose and intent.

When members of civilized society decide them "unnecessary" ~intolerable as function of time and circumstance~ enforced discipline such as Sterrett's impulsive impalement of a crewman are recognized as acts of murder.

When members of civilized society decide them "unnecessary," impulsive courts-martial, such as are the disciplinary hearings of Ray Girouard and Larry Hutchins, are recognized acts of attainder.

In civilized society ~when civilian criminal courts are open and available~ it's a jury's duty to decide what's necessary and what's unnecessary.

Courts-martial are savage, base, vulgar, and ferocious acts of a dictator no matter the form or process. Courts-martial are formidable manifestations of the rule of one man -- the president of the United States. Once undressed and undisguised we find courts-martial simply the summary judgments of the commander in chief.

The despicable, violent, extraordinary, and extraconstitutional power of attainder must not be vested in the CINC very often or for very long. The commander must be stripped of attainder power in that instant it's no longer necessary. And we are to watch closely what the commander does with attainder power (war power) when he holds it.

Courts-martial are discontinuous and must be discontinued (see the First British Mutiny Act of 1689).

The president of the United States (the CINC) locked up Ray and Larry without a jury's knowledge or permission. Consequently, Ray and Larry are buried in military caves as political prisoners...victims of attainder.

Call the FBI to report these crimes. If you're an American citizen you have standing to advance the criminal complaint.

FBI Knoxville: 865.544.0751FBI Boston: 617.742.5533

Sweetwater Mayor James Stutts: 423.337.6979

Representative John J. Duncan, Jr.: 865.523.3772

U.S. Senators Bob Corker: 865.637.4180Lamar Alexander: 865.545.4253

If you know any of Ray or Larry's brethen similiarly oppressed, call your nearest FBI office and report the crimes!

Commanding officers once held courts-martial round an upturned drum to publicly inflict instant summary punishment against subordinates on charges alleged or suspected of offenses during military operations.

Military dictators are empowered to use DRUMHEAD COURTS as tools to simultaneously pronounce and carry out punishment replacing the judge and jury.

The modern day courts-martial of Army Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard and Marine Corps Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins, their men, and others differed only in appearance, time, venue, and forum from drumhead courts. As in drumhead courts of olden days, only one man--acting as judge and jury--decided these men's fate wherein process and practice of preordained outcomes remained unchainged!

I sez Ray Girouard and Larry Hutchins (and all the others) are innocent men until A JURY--constitutionally constructed and recognized--sez different!

I'm making a stand here in Sweetwater in the hopes of setting up a line of resistance others can form upon (such as Larry Hutchins neighbors in Plymouth, Massachusetts). I seek to discover in the folks in my surrounding Norman Rockwell community are okay with burying men like Ray and Larry alive as political prisoners in congressional concentration camps populated by U.S. citizens worldwide WITHOUT A JURY'S PERMISSION!

I will relentlessly demand Ray and Larry and all the others be immediately released, restored, made whole, and allowed to return to their communities, homes, and families where they are respected and loved!

In this series of postings from the Sweetwater Library I will pull off the hood blinding everyday citizens regarding the scope and danger of American courts-martial operated by a military aristocracy Army Colonel David Hackworth accurately renamed the "military industrial congressional complex."

America's Constitution outlaws courts-martial!

Courts-martial are every part weapons of violence as tanks or ships! As much acts of violence as they are the scenes of violence--crime scenes in and of themselves.

Military governors are empowered to use courts-martial to punish enemeis of the state only under the most extreme set of circumstances. Courts-martial fulfill an extraordinarily special function in our nation's life that is measured in time, place, and operation in the most exceedingly narrow conditions (we'll consider these special circumstances, conditions, and functions as this series progresses). Courts-martial are supposed to be uncommonly rare. Precedents rendering courts-martial illicit are long-held and remain solid (found first in Britian's First Mutiny Act 3 April 1689).

Courts-martial are normally intolereble.

Courts-martial are to tools of dictators!

Courts-martial are used to instill and energize the rule of fear...that special brand of fear that forces men to fight for the king (er...I mean the president) against their will.

Courts-martial derive their force and authority through threat of military action! Not from our Constitution.

Again, America's Constitution outlaws courts-martial!

Yet still, Commander in Chief Bush pronounced Ray and Larry enemies of the United States (as the CINC ordered) and then ordered subordinate command racketeers to inflict terrible violence upon these men (as with so many others) making Ray and Larry, their families, friends, and communities suffer in liberty and life.

There were NO JUDGES, NO JURIES! Just Commander in Chief Bush acting directly against Ray and Larry in service to state reasons and clandestine political agendas.

This describes with precision the crime of ATTAINDER.

The Constitution outlaws ATTAINDER!

People who perpetrate the crime of ATTAINDER (courts-martial) on U.S. citizens are called...well...ah...they're called OUTLAWS!

And Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents are invested with a special duty to arrest OUTLAWS committng the crime of ATTAINDER (courts-martial) on American citizens. Once arrested those accused of ATTAINDER (courts-martial) are subject to prosecution and conviction in civilian criminal courts (real courts wereJURIES reside).

Honest. It's true...all true! You can read about here in the Sweetwater library.

Long observed and known to all commanding officers, "A court-martial is no part of the JUDICIARY of the nation...'[A court-martial] is indeed a creature of orders...Not belonging to the judicial branch of Government (sic), it follows that courts-martial must pertain to the executive department; and [courts-martial] are simply instumentalities of the executive power!" (William Winthrop in his classic tome on the subject: Military Law and Precedents--1896) (Emphasis mostly mine)

Applying the simple legislative history it's clear each courts-martial are the product of congressional legislation ("a legislative act") which inflicts punishment (a function of military command) without a judicial trial (where juries normally sit and examine the governments theory and evidence of an alleged criminal act).

Courts-martial are the places where juries go to die!

I reminded Sweetwater Mayor--James Stutts--of all this during our ninety minute meeting at City Hall this past Wednesday. After our discussion Mayor Stutts returned to his "full-time" job as McMinn County assistant district attorney.

Indulge my gentle suggestion that shrewd and clever command racketeers are laughing up their sleeves at my Sweetwater neighbors (and Larry's neighbors in Plymouth) shamefully comfortable in what America's military aristocracy views as a combination of disinterest and invincible ignorance.

The collection of command royalty considers itself unassailable from attack from what they think is a discredited minority. Don't you understand? Senior commanders think regular folks like us aren't nearly sophisiticated and enlightened enough to comprehend and understand what command racketeers know is best.

Military governors say to us...Citizens...do you understand? Using the Articles of War (UCMJ) is a better than use of constitutionally constructed trials to find accused criminals guilty or innocent.Professional command criminals see residents of Sweetwater and Plymouth as nothing if not lowly groupings of people--political nullities--incapable of recognizing the UCMJ as a "military code of greater age and dignity and of a more elevated tone than [the Constitution]...which by [the liberty experienced absent a jury] enjoys a freedom from the technical forms and obstructive habits [of a jury] that embarrass and delay the operations of civilian criminal courts." (William Winthrop - Military Laws and Precedents)

Army generals rely upon a combination of community ignorance and indifference granting them silent permission to steal pay and benefits, making guys like Ray and Larry suffer in liberty and life without the inspection, scrutiny, careful consideration, and permission of A JURY!

So far as I can tell these career criminals (the admirals and generals) sleep well at night daily assured and reinforced in their notions that they're right in their estimations of folks like you reading this posting from the Sweetwater Library. Flag rank officers think nobody really cares enough that men like Ray and Larry are kidnapped and held in dark, cold, military enclaves as innocent men.

I'm encouraged to contemplate--by way of your energentic, unrelenting, and overwhelming response (community outrage)--your upending the misplaced confidence of the command racketeers.

If command racketeers still believe they have a case against anyone one of these people...well fine...let 'em walk it into a real federal courtroom where a real jury can take government allegations under consideration.

Ray and Larry are innocent men!

I know you won't let them down. Please start the phones ringing.

Here endth this lesson (more to follow)

BEWARE THE FURY OF THE PATIENT MAN!!

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PHONE NUMBERS:

FBI Knoxville Division: 865.544.0751FBI Boston: 617.742.5533

Sweetwater Mayor James Stutts: 423.337.6979

Representative John J. Duncan, Jr.: 865.523.3772

U.S. Senators -

Bob Corker: 865.637.4180Lamar Alexander: 865.545.4243

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NOTE:

Should JAG HUNTER readers be well-disposed to contribute a few bucks to Sweetwater's Library, here's the address:

SWEETWATER PUBLIC LIBRARY

210 MAYES AVENUE

SWEETWATER, TENNESSEE 37874

Here my sincere expression of appreciation and gratitude to the nicest and most professional library staff anywhere.